The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, page 28
It was truly a lot for Sticky to be feeling all at once. But there was only one thing to do, and that was to run for his life.
First locking the door to the exercise room (it was just a regular door, unfortunately, and he knew that Crawlings could get through it quickly), Sticky dragged the bench over in front of it, followed by the two chairs, and then fled through the opposite door.
Soon he was in the green plaid hallway, where he found Reynie and Tai waiting for him. Reynie was tugging anxiously at the straps of his backpack, but at the sight of Tai jumping up and down and pointing at Kate’s bucket on the floor, Sticky’s heart soared. The bucket had worked! Oh, how he loved that bucket!
Sticky plunged onto his belly, wriggled beneath the barrier to the sound of Tai’s excited cheers, then pulled mightily on the bucket, trying to wrench it free so that the barrier would fall the rest of the way. He pulled, and pulled, and pulled. Reynie grabbed the bucket and pulled, too. Tai reached through their legs, found a tenuous grip with the tips of his fingers, and tried to help. The bucket didn’t budge. They tried to raise the barrier even an inch so that they might slide the bucket free, but even an inch proved impossible.
“It seems very well designed,” Tai said, to the bemusement of both the young men.
“I suppose it is,” Reynie acknowledged.
They turned and ran.
It was a very, very long hallway, down the length of which were several doors that Sticky and Reynie hurriedly threw open, hoping Crawlings would feel compelled to investigate what lay behind them. Meanwhile Tai, who unlike Sticky and Reynie wasn’t worried about what Crawlings might do to them, chattered happily all the way. “Why, do you think, do the walls have this pattern like Mr. Benedict’s old suits? Is it because Mr. Curtain and Mr. Benedict both find it soothing? That’s what Constance said—that green plaid is soothing to them. It used to help keep Mr. Benedict calm, which helped him with his narpo… narlo…”
“Narcolepsy,” Sticky panted.
“Right! And Mr. Benedict doesn’t have that problem anymore because of Constance, but Mr. Curtain still does, and I guess it makes sense that they would want him to be as calm as possible so he wouldn’t be falling asleep as much when they let him go to the exercise room. Does that make sense to you?”
“Uh-huh,” Sticky panted.
“Sure,” Reynie panted.
“But I wonder if it works on other people, too? Do you feel calm and soothed? I think I might! I think it might be working on me!”
“That’s great, Tai,” Reynie wheezed.
At last the hallway took a sharp turn and opened onto the large, mysterious room they had seen on the monitor.
With its high vaulted ceiling, its tile floors, and the sound of rushing water echoing off the stone walls, the room seemed to be some strange combination of secret grotto and shopping mall atrium. The gap in its floor, which ran from wall to wall and was several meters across, turned out to be a kind of flooded canal. The water, a couple of meters below floor level and of uncertain depth, gushed along with alarming speed and turbulence. A retractable metal bridge was set into the side of the canal just below them, folded up like an accordion, with no obvious way of extending it.
They looked behind them and spotted a control board on the wall. Sticky went straight to it.
“Right here,” Reynie said to Tai, pointing to a spot on the floor well away from the edge of the canal. “You can’t get any closer to the water than that, okay?”
Tai gave him a jaunty salute and sat down cross-legged in precisely the spot Reynie had indicated. The little boy was enthralled by the room. “Where do you think the water comes from?”
“Well, from the harbor. I suspect it’s connected to the tidal turbine system somehow.”
“Do you think I’d drown if I fell in?”
“Let’s not risk it. My guess is it would whisk you away and deposit you in some secure location, where you would have to be retrieved. But I don’t know where that location is, or even if I’m correct, so don’t you move.”
“Roger that!”
Reynie joined Sticky at the control board. It had a tiny display screen at the top and a large switch on one side. The rest of it was a grid of metal buttons, below each of which was a letter from the alphabet. “Any thoughts?”
“It’s a simple code system,” Sticky said. “You push a button, and the corresponding letter appears on this little screen. Six letters total. Then you can extend and retract that bridge with this switch. There should be”—he turned to peer across the room—“yes, there’s another control board on the opposite wall, right next to the security door.”
“So if we can get to the other side, we can retract the bridge to that side? Meaning Crawlings couldn’t get across the water? Could he flip the switch and bring it back?”
Sticky shook his head. “It doesn’t look like that kind of system to me. If you retract the bridge to your side, you’re the only one who has control of it. Besides, he doesn’t know the code.”
“Neither do we, yet.”
A small splash sounded behind them. They spun around in alarm. Tai was safely where Reynie had left him, however, standing as high as he could on his knees and craning his neck to see something in the water.
“Wow, it goes so fast!” he cried.
Reynie looked at Tai’s feet. “Did you just throw one of your shoes into the water?”
Tai laughed. “You should have seen it go!”
“Well, but now you have only one shoe.”
Tai sat back again. “Oh, that’s true,” he said mildly. Evidently, he hadn’t thought the matter through.
“By the way,” Reynie said, “I should have said so sooner, but we need to be very quiet.”
Tai nodded, and upon a moment’s reflection, he got up and hopped over to them, using only the shoeless foot because socks, after all, are quieter than shoes.
Sticky and Reynie were studying the control board. At exactly the same time, they both pointed to the “D” and “E” buttons. Tai giggled at this—he couldn’t help it—but immediately cut himself off and whispered, “Why did you both point at those buttons?”
“They’re both a bit shinier than the others,” Sticky whispered, and Tai, staring, saw what he meant. Most of the buttons were dusty and, in some cases, even slightly corroded from moisture. He nodded approvingly at their detective work, and by the time their scanning eyes had settled on the “R” button, Tai had spotted it, too, and was able to point at it right when they did.
“Nice job,” Reynie whispered.
The trouble was that they couldn’t find any other buttons that showed signs of use. They needed six total letters, but they had only three to choose from. Each letter obviously had to be used at least once, but some obviously had to be used more than once. Which ones, though? And how many times each? And in what order?
“Can’t we just try different sequences until we find the right one?” Tai whispered. “It’s only six letters. How many sequences can there possibly be?”
“Five hundred forty,” replied Reynie and Sticky at the same time. They traded amused glances and crossed their eyes.
Tai gasped. “How did you both know that? And how could there be so many?”
Sticky tried to think of a quick way to explain to Tai about combinatorial mathematics, about using the inclusion-exclusion principle to enumerate the union of finite sets, but then Reynie simply whispered that they would explain the math to him later, and Sticky, immensely relieved, took the opportunity instead to go and peek into the green plaid hallway. Still no sign of Crawlings.
“This is where we use the gold key,” Reynie was saying to Tai when Sticky rejoined them, and Tai eagerly dug into his pocket.
While the two of them had been waiting at the barrier, Reynie had memorized what Sticky had written down, and then—upon Tai’s pleading—had given the piece of paper to Tai with strict instructions not to drop it. (“We don’t want to risk anyone else finding it,” he’d said.) For this reason, Reynie’s heart skipped a beat when Tai said, in a panicked whisper, that the paper wasn’t there.
Then Reynie saw that Tai was searching the wrong pocket, and with a sigh of relief he pointed this out. Tai echoed his sigh, adding greater emphasis, and pulled the paper out of the other pocket. Though he hardly understood it at all, this was what it said:
For feline perambulation:
Ponder your penultimate clue.
Prepare your postulation.
One’s level best one wants to do
To reach one’s destination.
(No more word clues for you now—no, not another peep.
You’ve shown your own full-blown know-how in mastering the KEEP.)
“There are three big words that start with a P,” Tai observed. “What’s a feline—?”
“A perambulation is a walk,” Reynie replied, anticipating the rest of Tai’s question. He also anticipated all the other questions Tai would ask him if he didn’t quickly explain what he could, and so in a hurried whisper Reynie said, “‘Feline perambulation’ clearly refers to the catwalk—”
“What’s a catwalk?” Tai interrupted.
Reynie blinked. He had not anticipated every question, after all. “In this case it means a narrow metal bridge or walkway, like the one over there. And ‘penultimate’ means ‘next to last,’ so, since this clue is the last clue, evidently we need to think about—or ponder—the clue that came before it, which is the one Sticky and I solved to get the override code. By ‘postulation,’ I think Mr. Benedict means a possible explanation for something.”
“So if you ponder the other clue, it will help you figure out this one?” Tai asked.
Reynie and Sticky tapped their noses.
“What do you think?” Sticky asked Reynie.
“I think the answer may have something to do with wordplay,” Reynie said. “Did you notice how the last clue used the words ‘one’s’ and ‘wants’ and ‘once’ a lot? Words that sound very much alike? At the time I thought it might mean that the code needed to include the number one—but then the code turned out to be purely alphabetical. Now I’m thinking he was just trying to call attention to the way words look and sound. He used ‘one’s’ and ‘wants’ in this one, too—I’m guessing as a reminder.”
Sticky, who had come to a similar conclusion, was nodding along as Reynie spoke. “And with this one he’s used a few multisyllable words that start with P—”
“Three!” Tai said.
“Right, three. Oh, and in the last one he referred to words like ‘LIVE’ and ‘EVIL,’ ‘KEEP’ and ‘PEEK,’ which—”
“I have it!” Reynie said, and without wasting a moment he pressed the buttons in the following sequence: REDDER. A soft buzzer sounded inside the box. He threw the switch, and behind them the catwalk began to extend across the canal.
It did so, unfortunately, very loudly. Clacking and rattling and clanking as they unfolded, the metal sections slowly stretched over the water. With Sticky and Reynie each holding one of Tai’s hands, the three of them ran to stand at the edge.
Never had anything seemed to move so slowly as the catwalk did now. Repeatedly glancing over their shoulders toward the hallway, Sticky and Reynie urged the catwalk onward in their minds.
“How did you know the answer?” asked Tai, speaking up to be heard over the noise.
Reynie supposed it didn’t matter at this point. “You heard Sticky mention the words ‘live’ and ‘evil’ from the last clue, right? They have the same sequence of letters—they just run in opposite directions. It’s the same thing with ‘keep’ and ‘peek.’ Now, what if you put each pair of words next to each other—‘live evil’ and ‘keep peek’? If you take them together, each pair of words is exactly the same whether you read forward or backward.”
“Hey, that’s true!”
“Well, that was a hint. If you look at—wait, where is that piece of paper, Tai?”
Tai let go of their hands and looked into his own, decidedly empty ones. “Oops.”
Reynie turned and saw the piece of paper on the floor. He ran back for it, rejoining them just as the catwalk, with a final clatter and bang, reached the opposite side of the canal. He took Tai’s hand again, and together they dashed across, their feet booming on the metal. Sticky ran to the control box, entered the code, and threw the switch. Now the process was reversed—the catwalk detached from the opposite side and, making just as much racket as before, retracted toward them.
“The catwalk goes backward and forward just like those words!” Tai said. He gave a little jump, delighted to have thought of this.
“Excellent observation,” Reynie said, glancing nervously toward the hallway. Just a few seconds longer and they should be safe. “And do you know what we call a word that’s spelled the same both backward and forward? A palindrome.”
Tai’s jaw dropped. “That’s another big word that starts with P!”
“It sure is,” Reynie said. “That was another hint. Also, there’s a reason Mr. Benedict told us to do our ‘level’ best—‘level’ is a palindrome, too, isn’t it? And his final hint came when he said ‘No more word clues for you now—no, not another peep.’ He was telling us that the word ‘peep’ is a word clue. Can you guess why?”
“Because it’s a pandrilome!” Tai squeaked excitedly.
“A palindrome,” Reynie corrected. “But yes. Just like ‘redder’ is.”
With a last screeching, thunking sound, the catwalk completed its journey, now snugly folded up against their side of the canal. It was a wonderful thing to see. Less encouraging, however, was the fact that Sticky had been trying without luck to get the security door open. He had entered the override code on a keypad next to the door, but nothing had happened. Assuming he had entered it incorrectly, he had tried again—twice. The door remained locked.
Reynie, who had been keeping an anxious eye on this frustrating process, glanced quickly about for another solution. Now he spotted, on the other side of the door, a tiny speaker with an intercom button.
Sticky followed his gaze. “Oh!” he cried, and leaped to push the button. “Hello in there! Mr. Benedict?”
There was a pause, and then: “My dear George, is that you? How delightful to hear your voice! And Reynie and your charming new friend are both with you, is that correct?”
“That’s correct!” Tai shouted. He was very excited to be meeting Mr. Benedict at last.
“We’re expecting less-pleasant company any moment, though,” Sticky said. “I don’t suppose you could give us the code to the door?”
“Of course,” came Mr. Benedict’s reply. “I can’t say it aloud—Ledroptha might overhear me—but I can point you to it easily enough. It’s one of my favorite words, and I said as much over a particularly lovely dinner last fall, when you had all taken turns jumping into the spectacular pile of leaves that Kate had raked up.”
“Were we eating roasted apples when you told us?” Sticky asked.
“Indeed!”
Reynie and Sticky looked at each other and nodded. They remembered quite well that most pleasant of autumn evenings, not least a discussion about a chess game that Mr. Benedict had recently played with Mr. Curtain. (The genius brothers made use of notation but not of a chessboard; they simply announced their moves to each other and kept track of the games in their heads.) In describing certain aspects of the game to the Society members, Mr. Benedict had revealed his fondness for the word ‘zugzwang,’ a chess term referring to a situation in which a player’s only possible moves are to that player’s own disadvantage.
“Never a happy position in which to find oneself,” he’d said, chuckling, “but it’s awfully fun to say, is it not?”
Sticky entered ‘zugzwang’ into the keypad. A sound of turning gears issued from inside the wall. The door slid open.
“Do wait for me!” shouted a familiar voice from behind them.
Reynie, Sticky, and Tai, each uttering his own personal sound of dismay, turned to see what they knew they would see.
Crawlings had entered the room. He was approaching the canal at a sauntering pace. In one hand he carried Kate’s duffel bag. His other gripped the wrist of the Listener, whose back was to them all, for she was attempting, with her own soft cries of dismay, to run back into the hallway. Her efforts seemed to have no more physical effect on Crawlings, however, than a fluttering sparrow’s might have had. He seemed almost not to notice her there.
“Hold the door for me, won’t you, little ones?” Crawlings called, dropping the duffel bag at his feet. In one fluid motion he reached into the bag, came up with Kate’s crossbow, and fired the grappling hook across the canal. With a reverberating clang, the hook found purchase on the folded catwalk, a cable stretched taut over the canal, and Crawlings backed up. Screeching in resistance, the catwalk began to extend over the water.
“Let’s not hold the door for him,” whispered Tai.
For once the little boy looked and sounded as scared as Sticky and Reynie felt.
“Let’s not,” Sticky said.
“Agreed,” said Reynie.
The three of them hurried through the door, but even as it closed behind them, they heard Crawlings’s voice ring out across the water.
“Oh dear, how very rude of you!” the Ten Man cried. “Also, I might add, how very pointless! I know the code, you see. Oh yes! That little boy of yours has a leaky mind, and my friend here has a very acquisitive one. I know the code. I know the code. I happen. To know. The code!”
